This is the fun part of the show where I get to tell you about some great reads that you might have missed this week. As usual, I try to get one from the chicks and one from the dudes. This week, I even have one from “The Queen.”
From The Ladies:Abby Has Issues is a hilarious blog by Abby Heugel. This week she wrote a piece called My Marriage Proposal that had me considering the concept of a Sister Wife. I decided I really wanted Abby to move in with me – and my husband. Why? Because Abby has decided she would like to be a Consolation Prize Wife, which is not to be confused with a Trophy Wife. Abby’s totally cool with being a consolation prize, and she gives a lot of convincing reasons why you should be too. Let’s just say, she had me at Swiffer Wet Jet.
• • •
From the Dudes: Paul Waters has a very funny post for all you little history buffs in the house. Or for folks who like naughty words that aren’t supposed to be naughty but they totally are. Poor Bastards. His piece is called “Are You SURE You Want To Take His Name When You Get Married?” I can’t say more without ruining the funny. Paul is one of the very first people I met when I landed here in the Blogosphere, and I have been enjoying his writing for a year now. It’s time to stop hogging him to myself. Read more of Paul’s stuff at Blackwatertown.
• • •
From The Queen: If you haven’t yet been introduced to Kristen Lamb’s fabulous blog Warrior Writers, today is your lucky day! Thank goodness for premature button pushing! This week Kristen Lamb, author of We Are Not Alone: The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer accidentally released one of her dazzlingly gorgeous pieces of brilliance a little earlier than expected. Let’s just say, the unexpected bundle of joy entitled, “Sacred Cow-Tipping: Why Writers Blogging About Writing is Bad” was received with much head-nodding and agreement that her spawn is, indeed, breathtaking. KL’s post explains why writers should not create blogs that are exclusively dedicated to writing about writing.
I am so glad I did not make the mistake about writing about writing. But I almost did. A teacher for 20 years, when I decided to start blogging, I figured I’d write about writing. My son (age 10 at the time) rolled his eyes and said, “Mom, that’s so boring. You don’t have to always be the teacher. You can also be the dumb one.” And he was right. I have so many stories where I am the Chief Twit-in-Residence, so instead of always having to be Mrs. Smarty-Pants, I can also be the wisenheimer. So instead of being locked in to talking about commas and semi-colons, I left room for options. Which is one of Kristen’s points. They don’t call her “The Queen” for nothing. (Well, they don’t. But I do.)
Before you check out these amazing writers, can you explain what’s up with that cat?
Huzzah! The first entry in my “Saturday Summer Screwball” contest has arrived! This is Todd. He enjoys unicorns, shopping at The Gap, and he knows everything you ever wanted to know about The Brady Bunch. T-Bone made an awesome video of himself showing how he enjoys his summer: dressing up like Kidd Rock and lip-syncing to Southern Rock. I love the way this guy knows how to fist pump!
How fun is that? Okay, so he forgot to mention “Lessons From Teachers and Twits” in there, but what the heck!
Hopefully T-Bone’s efforts will inspire you to send in your own G-rated video in which you:
1) Show yourself doing something that you love to do to relax that is slightly screwy;
2) Be sure to mention my blog – “Lessons From Teachers and Twits” – somewhere;
3) Upload your video to YouTube;
4) Send the link to: rasjacobsonNY {at} gmail {dot} com!
At the end of the summer, readers will decide who is most deserving of winning a $10 gift card (from Ben & Jerry’s or Starbucks). The winner gets to choose that part!
Now back to Todd. Seriously, how many things are there to love in that video? Let’s see how many we can list. I’ll go first: Love that black sweatband! Yesssss!
Today’s guest blogger is a cousin of mine, Merrill Rose Wasser. She lived in Kunming for about a year while on a Fulbright Scholarship, researching ethnic minority handicrafts and their commercialization in relation to tourism (often Chinese government-sponsored tourism). She spent most of her research time in Western Yunnan, along the Myanmar border. Yunnan province, in southwest China, has over 25 officially recognized minority groups, and was therefore a fitting location for this type of anthropological study.
You will want to check out her travel blog which intelligently (and hilariously) depicts all the amazing experiences she’s collected from August 2009 until June 2010. She did it all: from losing her Passport to getting scratched by monkeys. From getting crazy sick on a wild bus ride to visiting a Little People colony.
Merrill currently lives in Hong Kong and works in digital advertising.
• • •
We eat alphabet soup. We sing the alphabet song. Little children learn to scrawl the letters out on lined paper in kindergarten class, and go home to their ecstatic parents who tape up the ugly, uneven lines on the refrigerator and coo over the achievement. I personally remember practicing my letters at home (somewhere between the ages of 6 and 8 years old), and even recall a serious spelling altercation at age 6, when I vehemently stood by my claim that the word “from” was spelled f-o-r-m.
But when we sit down and think of it, isn’t learning to spell an exciting, and even intriguing activity? Even more fascinating is the way people spell in different countries.
Google Images
Take China, for example.
There’s no alphabet in Chinese.
Just characters.
Each character is made up of a collection of symbols with recurring themes and meanings.
One character is one word.
And to those of us who are born and raised in the west, learning to read and write a native language without an alphabet is a seriously intimidating and amazing feat.
So the next time you think about the alphabet, remind yourself of just how powerful the human brain is. To us in the West, it’s just the alphabet – prevalent everywhere, even in our soup. But in the grand scheme of things, it’s just one part of the world’s way of expressing communication in writing and passing it down through generations.
Do you have a favorite letter of the alphabet above? Which character do you love? Tell me why!
My friend Carl D’Agostino and I often have Vulcan mind-melds. This week while I was tapping away abouthow much my Monkey loves his Ticonderogas, Carl simultaneously posted a pencil related comic on his blog, “I Know I Made You Smile.”
Check out Carl’s funny here, then come back and tell me about a mistake that could not be erased.
I’ll start: Congressman Anthony Weiner’s decision to send photos of himself in his grey underwear via Twitter. Whooopsie! Good luck with that one, dude.
In 5th grade, Mr. Zych lectured all of his students about how to properly sharpen a pencil. He wasn’t messing around. His speech was not short, and he covered everything from how to properly grip the pencil to the cranking motion – how it should be smooth and continuous, not jerky. He even discussed the perils of over-sharpening, which could lead to premature tip-breakage. Mr. Zych turned pencil sharpening into a science.
Personally, I have had a love-hate relationship with pencils. I first learned how to print my alphabet in pencil and then I learned how to write in cursive in pencil. That was Paradise. Finally, a way to write all the stories stored in my head. Later, I preferred to write with pens – preferably ones filled with purple or green ink. But ever since my son started school, he has been forever in need of pencils; they seem to always be around, and so I returned to the yellow pencils of my youth. I had learned to appreciate the feel of a pencil in my hand again. I even started to like the scratchy-scratchy sound of the graphite as it dragged across the page. After I recently stepped on a pencil, I became suspicious of them again and switched back to pens.
Meanwhile, my son is still on a steady diet of pencils. In middle school, the kids seem to devour them: literally and figuratively. I know my son nibbles on his; I’ve seen the teeth marks. I’ve watched him crunch while he contemplates before committing to writing an answer on paper. But sometimes I wonder if he actually eats them, too. I mean, where do they go? How many pencils does one kid need in a school year?
A few weeks back, Monkey came home in a tizzy.
“I’m out of pencils again,” he announced.
Nonplussed, I told him there were under three weeks of school left and that I was pretty sure he could make-do with his nubs until June 20.
He started at me with contempt.
“Are you serious?” he questioned. “I have exams! I need pencils! Ticonderogas. Now!”
He was not messing around.
The next day while in the grocery store – to my horror – I found plenty of office supplies, but they were only generic pencils. And even I know that those erasers don’t do the job. You need another eraser to get rid of the smears those lame pencils leave behind.
So I made an extra trek, this time to Staples – home of the Ticonderoga pencil – and invested in the Bulk pack. (Because that was all they had.) Let’s be clear. Ticonderoga pencils are like platinum. They cost a fortune. The only way a pencil could be more fabulous would be if you printed your name on pencils. A Ticonderoga is the Hum-V in the wonderful world of pencils. Teachers definitely prefer them. Definitely.
I rationalized that I could spend $15.77 + nearly 9% tax on pencils because they are non-perishable, so it is not like they will ever rot or mold. And I figured whatever is left at the end of the school year, Monkey can use in 7th grade, thus saving me some back-to-school shopping hassle.
A few days later, a good friend of mine called me and reported that her son – also a 6th grader – had run out of pencils. While requesting to buy more, she said my name was invoked. Apparently her son said:
“Can you just be like Mrs. J. and get the Giant Pack of 72 Ticonderoga pencils?”
Apparently Monkey had been bragging about his new stash.
I laughed at the sheer ridiculousness of it. Bragging about pencils?
And then I thought about how I had come full circle. Just one week before, I was cursing pencils as my husband dug around my heel with a needle in an attempt to get the lead out. (I know, I know. Pencils are made of graphite. I was going for the funny.) But now I found myself saying a silent prayer on behalf of all pencil-loving children everywhere. Uncharacteristically, I clasped my hands together and thought to myself:
Lord, may this be the worst thing my child ever desires. May this be his worst addiction. May he never see cocaine. May he never use LSD or heroin. May he avoid cigarettes and alcohol. May he avoid the ‘shrooms, the X, the meth. May he never huff. May he find the strength to avoid the Oxycontin and Adderall.
May he always be addicted to Ticonderoga pencils.
Because, honestly, I’ll happily help Monkey score his Ticonderoga pencils forever. I’ll even help him sharpen them. Mr. Zych schooled me on that a long time ago, and I feel confident I can help my son with his #2 pencil fix without any need for an Intervention.
It’s time for my favorite blogs of the week! As usual, I try to get one from the ladies and from the dudes.
Pick #1: I’m starting off my favorite reads-of-the-week with Tamara Lunardo from Tamara Out Loud. This week, Tamara wrote a piece called Tamara, Literally Out Loud in which she explains how much she dislikes it when people mispronounce her name. And she explains how everyone has mispronounced it for her entire life.
I could totally feel Tamara’s pain.
Pick #2: I’m new to Ricky Anderson‘s blog. Because I just started stalking following him, I can tell you that he is a self-proclaimed computer geek who is married and has at least one young’um. Also, he likes to eat cereal. I came to Ricky’s hilarious post Who Is The Frank Sinatra of Our Generation? viaKnox McCoy‘s blog and it got me thinking “Huh. Who is the sweet rebel crooner that is doing this his way?” Do you agree with Ricky’s analysis? Gotta read to find out.
But first, what do you think that guy up there so mad about?
A few hours after my pictures went live, Monsieur Flirt contacted me.
Actually, that is not exactly true.
Earlier that morning, I put out a call on Facebook asking friends to help me track him down.
It didn’t take long.
He responded to my blog – at first a little defensively – and we ended up privately emailing back and forth all day.
Short little emails.
He’s still funny.
And charming.
And he told me I’m funny.
(No duh!)
Somehow he forgot to mention that I am hot.
I don’t know how that happened.
Anyway, during our correspondence, Monsieur Flirt requested that I post an updated picture of him today. I guess even PMo got a little trapped behind the burden of those Senior Superlatives. Like me, he has grown up. He’s a man. A responsible and doting father with a job: a mortgage, bills. He is the same but different.
And he would like to show the world how he has morphed.
So you saw him in 1985; here he is in a photo taken in 2010.
Twenty-five years later.
PMo in 2010
At the end of our day of emails, PMo tapped out a quick last note:
Always fun bonding with you…
And I thought.
Yup.
PMo and I will always have that high school bond, a shared history where he was the studly-stud in the leather bomber jacket and I was the boobless babe in the short, red cheerleader skirt.
Thanks for being such a good sport, PMo.
If Photo Dude were taking our picture today, I’m sure he’d get a better shot. We would unlikely turn our backs to each other, and we would definitely smile.
In fact, I’ll make sure to get that picture at our 30th reunion in 2015.
Anyone else have any “Morning After” School Photo Day stories? Or am I just the lucky one?
A few weeks back Leanne Shirtliffe (Ironic Mom), Clay Morgan (EduClaytion) and Keenie Beanie came up with a brilliant horrifying idea. To go digging back through old school yearbooks and encourage other bloggers to post pictures of ourselves on our pages, along with a little write-up. They would call it:
I wanted to participate in Leanne’s, Clay’s and Keanie Beanie’s brain fart child, but I was saddened to realized I had actually scribbled all over my face in nearly every picture. Think I’m kidding? I’m not. This is my Senior picture.
Worst. Picture. Ever.
I was really into the Grateful Dead at the time. Please note my fancy spelling of the Dead, my little rose at the top of my picture, and my penned in peace-sign earrings.
I did find one picture in that same yearbook that stood out to me.
It was the picture taken for Senior Superlatives, a tradition at my high school. Members of the Senior class voted for their choice of male and female representatives in 12 different categories like Best Looking, Best Dressed, Most Friendly, Most Artistic, Most Athletic, Most Musical… you get the idea. (I wonder if they still do that.)
Scroll down to see what I got.
Monsieur Flirt and I were on-again, off-again friends during high school. During this picture, I think we were off. Yeah, definitely off. The week prior he had intentionally backed into my tan Plymouth Volaré as we waited at a red light. Honestly, he just lightly tapped the front bumper of my car with his rear bumper. Problem was my mother was also in the front seat of the car, and she did not think the whole “bumper cars” thing was very funny. She was pretty pissed.
She also has no recall of this incident at all.
Anyway, the day for photos came and Monsieur Flirt and I weren’t really friendly. I think he might have punched me that week. Or maybe he was mean to one of my friends. I don’t know. All I know is that the student photographer kept saying, “Get into a more flirtatious pose!” And neither one of us could muster it. I mean, we just couldn’t. Could there be stronger body language that says: I do not want to be in a picture with this person? But our relentless, young photographer was on assignment and kept making suggestions like, “Why don’t you dip her?” and “Why don’t you pretend to kiss?” Horrifying.
Finally, Monsieur Flirt and I decided to go with the back-to-back thing. Actually, I don’t think it was really a decision. As you can see from Monsieur Flirt’s face, if Photo Dude wanted a picture, that was what he was going to get.
When the yearbook came out days before graduation, I stared at that photograph for a long time. I thought about the words: Class Flirt. I did not think of myself as a person who “made advances.” I did not consider myself a vamp or a vixen or a seductress. But it made me realize that a lot of other people saw me that way. I mean, they voted for me. The idea made me squirmy.
I didn’t like it very much.
The idea stayed with me as I headed off to college. So did I completely reinvent myself? No. I am still a little coquette. I still bat my eyelashes and wear high-heeled shoes. I still chat it up with the boys. But I’m not interested in giving anyone a “come hither” look nor am I interested in stringing anyone along. That is not a sport in which I like to dabble.
These days, I’ve got Hubby. And Monkey is my photographer. He calls the shots. He holds the camera and tells me to be myself. And so I am. In pictures and in life. I still enjoy a fabulous double entendre, which is probably why I have a thing for The Bard. But there is so much more to me. There always was.
Photo taken by Monkey at age 11.
If you want to participate in School Picture Day, it’s not too late! Read the instructions here. Then post a picture, write a little somethin’-somethin’ (or just leave a caption) and go check out the school photos of some other bloggers like Clay Morgan and IronicMom and KeenieBeanie. If you posted a photo on your blog, please include a link in the comment section. I promise to visit. Even if you don’t do it today. I figure you have the rest of the week. For the purposes of my blog, it is School Picture Week! 😉
Many Junes ago, after swimming all afternoon with friends in a pool that was nestled behind a tall fence on the grounds of the apartment complex in which my grandparents lived, I decided to pay my grandmother a visit.
My decision to visit was not a completely selfless act. The ice-cream man had come and gone, and I had forgotten to bring money to go to the 7-11 down the street, so I was crazy hungry and figured my grandmother would make me some of her fabulous french fried potatoes.
To get to my grandparents’ apartment, I could have walked on an asphalt road, but I generally opted for the short-cut across a broad expanse of grass that had been allowed to grow tall and wild. The prickly weeds made quite the obstacle course, and I always made a game of zigzagging from one patch of yellow flowers to another.
On that particular day, as I raced across the field barefoot, I stepped on something that made me look around to see if I had landed on a discarded cigarette. Alas, there were no burning embers, just a partially squashed yellow-jacket clinging to me, his stinger nicely embedded into the arch of my foot.
Midway between the pool and my grandparents’ apartment, I alternately limped and hopped across the grass. It was an eternity. The grass grew taller as I walked; the sun burned my shoulders. Eventually, I hobbled up the three flights of stairs to my grandparents’ apartment and knocked on the brown door marked simply with the number “7”.
I knew my grandmother would be home.
When I told her what had happened, she looked nervous. I showed her where the stinger was lodged and asked her if she could, maybe, get it out. A pre-teen at the time, I could tell from the look on my grandmother’s face that she would not be able to help me. Rather than get upset, I simply asked for some tweezers – which she ran to retrieve. Try as I might, I couldn’t get that pesky stinger out. I asked my grandmother for a needle and some ice, and while she obliged, she turned her head as I drove the needle into my own foot, digging around for the elusive stinger.
Eventually, victory was mine and, the stinger – pinched between the tips of the borrowed tweezers and no bigger than the sliver of hair – was inspected. Sure I bled a little bit, but as I rubbed antibiotic ointment on the area and put on a little Band-Aid, I felt strangely euphoric, crazy proud that I’d been able to take care of business, independent of adult help. As I devoured the french fried potatoes my grandmother set out before me, I remember feeling that I needed to rely more on myself, a simultaneously exhilarating and terrifying realization.
I haven’t needed tweezers or a needle again as I have managed to remain splinter free for nearly 30 years.
Until this past Monday night.
Monday night, I walked around the house doing what mothers do. I was cleaning up, making sure everything was where it was supposed to be, checking that all laundry was in the bin, and taking inventory of what food would need to be purchased during the week. Basically, I was on the prowl for misplaced K’Nex, unplugged gadgets, and dirty underwear. That’s when I felt it.
I screamed out loudly and uncharacteristically enough that Hubby and Monkey called out in unison: “Are you okay?”
“I stepped on something,” I said attempting to balance gracefully on my left foot while trying to check out what was going on with the bottom of my right. Instead of awaking my inner White Swan, I succeeded in recreating a pretty pitiful imitation of an uncoordinated pink-flamingo with a nerve palsy. Finally, using a chair for balance, I inspected the sole of my foot, where I saw a perfectly black and tiny, round something-or-other lodged in my heel.
Stooopid graphite!
I did what had worked before. I went straight for the needle. I dipped the pointed tip into rubbing alcohol and got to digging, but I couldn’t get anything out. I didn’t know what I might have stepped on, but that same stinging heat had returned. A body remembers things.
I called to my husband. “What is it?” he asked.
I have no idea, I said, “But I can’t get it.”
Hubby put on a headlamp.
“We may have to get you some lidocaine or something,” he said. “I don’t know if I can poke around without hurting you.”
“Just get it,” I said.
So Hubby took the needle and the tweezers and dug around for a good fifteen minutes, peeling away layers of skin and blotting blood, trying to grasp the foreign object which kept crumbling into dark fragments each time he announced he had it.
“Do you think it’s a rock?” I asked.
He shook his head.
“Do you think it’s a twig?”
Silence.
“Do you think I’m going to die?”
“You know what I think?” Hubby asked. “I think you stepped on a pencil.”
Great, I thought of my ironic obituary.
Teacher steps on pencil, dies of lead poisoning.
How rich.
“What happens if you have lead in your body?” I asked.
Hubby kept digging, “They don’t use lead in pencils anymore. These days, they use graphite.”
“Even in Ticonderogas?” I asked nervously, “Because those are really good pencils. You’re sure? Graphite?”
Hubby ignored me.
Awwwww, shizzle sticks.
“We have to get it out because you could get an infection. And I can’t get it because it keeps breaking.”
So I did what any woman who does not want to spend the next eight hours at the hospital would do. I gave my husband carte blanche. “Don’t worry about how much I complain. Or scream. Or bleed. Just dig.” (Oh, and be a sport and try not to be bothered by the fact that I am asking you all the questions that I just asked you – again. And that I’m filming you. It’s for my blog.)
Eventually, Hubby was the victorious and removed the slim sliver of graphite from my foot. Seriously, there was no way I was ever going to get that thing out by myself. And you know what, it’s nice to know there is someone you can rely on in times of need. Not like I didn’t know that before, but sometimes it’s nice to be reminded.
So anyone think it is hot to have the tattoo of a tiny, black circle on your heel?
‘Cuz, you know, I’ve got one.
Also, if you are looking to find me between now and September, I’m the one wearing flip-flops. Everywhere.
How do you do with splinters? And would you trust your spouse to do the deep probing?
To inspire my viewers and have some fun this summer, I am kicking off a contest.
We all work hard during the week, but it is important to relax whenever we can grab a moment. Every Saturday from now until September 3, 2011, I will post – videos of YOU, my beloved readers, doing the things you love to do! G-rated things. This is a family show, people! 😉 Think ziplines, epic water fights dressed as cyborgs, alligator wrestling.
Send me the link to your You Tube video at rasjacobsonNY@gmail.com anytime between now and September 3, 2011. Videos must be under 2 minutes and they should feature you doing something relaxing… that’s a little bit off-beat.
Between September 12-16, 2011, I will create a poll and ask people to vote for their favorite “Saturday Summer Screwball” video. If you mention this contest on your blog and link back here, you will receive an extra vote. If you Tweet an #SSS of your choice, you will also receive an extra vote. Just be sure to come back and let me know that you did!
To usher in the fall, one winner will be announced on September 21, 2011.
An uber-cool prize will be awarded.
You all know that I love to dance, so I’m kicking it off.
And, if you’ll notice, I’m kind of off-beat.
So here you are: for inspiration.
Seriously, it is a pity that you could not see my fabulous green wig in this video. I will have to spank Monkey talk to my tech guy.
I was prescribed Klonopin for insomnia in 2005. Seven years later, after a slow, medically supervised wean, I became cognitively impaired, and after 30 months of intense suffering, I have been resurrected - a phoenix, come from the ashes, ready to battle doctors and big Pharma, while offering empathic support to those still suffering protracted withdrawal symptoms.
A perfectionist by nature, I'm learning to find beauty in the chaos. I'm the girl with the big ideas and the big hair. And words. Always words.
All rights reserved. Excerpting portions of posts and/or linking them is encouraged, provided full and clear credit is given to renée a. schuls-jacobson with proper attribution via hyperlinks directing folks to the original content. Duplication in whole or substantial portion of this site or any component is not permitted: neither is reblogging.
renée a. schuls-jacobson 
